Blog

Slingshots

2012-02-13
WoodWorking
1 Comment

This is a sling shot I made earlier this year after viewing and then probably becoming addicted to Joerg Sprave’s slingshot channel.  It started with his video of launching a machete from a slingshot crossbow.  You can find Joerg’s blog at http://slingshotchannel.blogspot.com/.

I have no intentions (right now) of doing something as crazy as his machete launcher.  Perhaps not least because its really freaking cold out right now.  To cold for rubber to function properly.

I made this one after the frustration I experienced from my commercial sling shot and not being able to hit anything.  This one works much better, but produces alot of hand slaps.  I think this is mostly due to technique then the slingshot.

I’m working on another slingshot (which does not have the hand slap problem even with my poor technique), but it remains unfinished and I’ll post pictures when I’ve completed it – and take the time to do so.

I’m using tapered theraband gold for bands as well as custom pouches.  You can find theraband on ebay.

As Joerg would say, thanks and bye-bye.

Karma On The Fon: Self Powered Jasager

2011-11-14
Karma On The FonWifi Pineapple
0 Comment

Or, how to make a battery pack for your fonera.

You’ll need a multimeter, a 2.5mm by 5.5mm barrel plug (available on Amazon or better yet Radio Shack) and a 4 AA (or AAA, they supply the same voltage level). I also used some velcro so that the battery pack would be able to attach to the top of the fonera.

The outside of the barrel plug is negative and the inside is positive. Double check yours with the multimeter.

I also swapped the antenna for the bigger one from my other router.

Now, I can turn it on and leave it in my backpack to be even less suspicious 😀

Karm On the Fon: Again.

2011-10-17
Karma On The FonWifi Pineapple
2 Comments

I recently managed to find a job. Not a great job, but a job. I had some money that I decided to purchase a fon with. Of course, the purpose was to gain another router. The purpose was to make a jasager device. The Jasager is custom firmware for the fonera by Robin Wood, aka digininja.

Background

So, when a computer boots (if it has a wireless network card) it will send out broadcasts looking for networks it know. The idea behind the jasager firmware is that after installing you now have a device that will answer, “yup, that’s me!” anytime it receives those probe requests. If someone is looking for their home network at a coffee shop, they shouldn’t find it. The jasager is kind enough to say, yup, connect to me anyway.

Why?

Because after a client connects to your router, its YOUR client on YOUR network. Think of the fun.

Order a Serial Cable

Seriously

Or, why it took me five weekend to get this thing to work

Its taken me about 5 weeks to finally get jasager actually installed on the damn router. Partially because I had 0.7.1 r2. The tough cookie firmware. The first week I tried setting up a local version of Kolonfonium. Didn’t work. I even tried the hosted. It still didn’t work.

So I ordered what I had hoped would be the correct cable from ebay. For reference, a TXDATA1046 is not the cable you’re looking for. It was dead. I received a replacement. That was when I found out it was the incorrect cable.

I finally ordered an FTDI Friend from lady ada. I didn’t get it that weekend, so I didn’t work on my fon. As a statement, no I am not receiving funds for endorsing this product. I just think it does the job well and has the most flexibility I have seen of the various USB serial products available. You’ll also want this cable because you only need the three pins (GND, TX, & RX).

Some people have tricks and what not that they use. I’m just saying that, by the time you try those tricks and they (possibly) fail, you will still need the serial cable. If you brick your fon, you will need a serial cable. If you get a UK fon from ebay, you will have to have a serial cable. Just buy one. Update: Also, if you forget your password or screw up one of the network configuration files, you can fix it without reflashing the fonera.

The week after that I managed to get openwrt flashed. I skipped the week after that (I think). Tonight I installed the firmware package from the jasager website. I just followed the guide that digininja posted. So really, the hardest part in the whole process was figuring out how to talk to the little bastard.

Get the serial cable.

Build Firesheep for BackTrack 5

2011-07-04
backtrack linux
12 Comments

Here’s a guide on compiling Firesheep for both Firefox 3.6.x. I will hopefully be posting a usage guide shortly. There is a way to build it for Firefox 4, but as of yet it is not functioning.

  1. Clone the git repository containing the firesheep plugin: git clone https://github.com/codebutler/firesheep.git
  2. Install the following packages needed to build firesheep: autoconf libtool libpcap-dev libboost-all-dev libhal-dev xulrunner-1.9.2-dev
  3. Change to the firesheep directory
  4. Run git submodule update --init

    5. If you want to build a firefox 4 version under Backtrack 5, you will have to build xulrunner from source. I will not cover this, as it is fairly simple, but compiling takes forever! Better to build it under a recent version of kubuntu 🙂

  5. To attempt to build the Firefox 4 port, run the following commands. You can skip these if you plan on using firefox 3.6. 
    git fetch origin firefox4
git checkout firefox4
git checkout master
git merge firefox4
  6. ./autogen.sh
  7. make
  8. The firesheep.xpi you just built will located in the build/ directory.
  9. Install in firefox

Backtrack5 Install Notes

2011-05-14
backtrack linux
0 Comment

A blog post, a Backtrack 5 review . . . Awesomeness. BT5 was released via torrent only on the 10th, and I managed to download it earlier this week. I was finally able to install it last night. Here are my thoughts and notes I made while using BT5 for the very brief bit of time that I have had.

Incidental thoughts

This are small things I found while installingusing Backtrack 5 and ways that I think it can be improved. These are just incidental things that could be fixed, but don’t have to be.

  • The taskbar does not show a battery monitor by default. It would be nice, although you can easily enable it by changing a setting in the system tray preferences.
  • Taskbar is like 60% the width of the screen and slid to the left. I’m not sure what the reason for this is, it would be nice for it to be centered, or full screen width.
  • Backtrack 5 uses GRUB2, but does not have a decent theme. It might be nice for the creators to BURG instead.
  • It would be nice to have an option in the installer to adjust mobo time in the installer. Backtrack 5 is using my motherboard time, which is set to actual time instead of GMT. There is probably something I need to change but I haven’t taken the time to find it yet.

Larger complaints

These are items that I would consider bugs.

  • I really wish the developers would have used a newer version of ubuntu. I know that 10.04 is in long term support, but I still have a few qualms.
  • They really need to include some shutdown options.
  • When the installer was finished, it said that “Ubuntu” had finished installing.
  • When booting, it shows “Ubuntu 10.04” briefly.
  • After starting KDE, KDE mentions something about an ensoniq audio device not being found.

Happiness

  • Backtrack 5 properly detects and uses the display driver for my netbook, something BT4 R2 did not do. Awesomeness
  • I saw that some updates had already been released for Backtrack 5. I know that the point of switching to an Ubuntu base with Backtrack was to enable a better update system. I don’t think that it was really used however in Backtrack4 like it should have been. These updates were nice to see and I really really hope the trend continues.
  • I’m glad to see that the installer did not mess up my boot MBR like Backtrack 4 R2 did.
  • Over all, I also think that Backtrack 5’s partition layout tool is clearer, which is very nice.

I’ll be playing with Backtrack 5 more over the next month and a half. I’ll be discussing what I find on the Techie Trio podcast. By the way, we released a new episode so you really should check it out.

Front Seat or Back Seat?

2011-05-03
Uncategorized
0 Comment

Fs= μs × N
To get newtons is kind of convoluted but I believe the method is: mass × gravitational pull = Newtons.

Front Seat:

Fs= μs × N
Newtons = (Black’s weight + books) × 9.81; Newtons= 490.5
Fs= .5s × 490.5 = 245.25

Back Seat:

Fs= μs × N
Newtons = Black’s weight) × 9.81; Newtons= 392.4
Fs= .7s × 392.4 = 274.68

Answer

So, she should sit in the backseat.

Now. What is the what is the coefficient of static friction for the trunk?

Random Update With Some Hopefully Cool Stuff

2011-03-14
Uncategorized
0 Comment

Random update time!

This is my (crappy) multimeter. I had to sharpen the probes because they weren’t able to fit into network plugs, preventing me from checking the continuity of my cables. Note the elastic hair band used to keep the wires and probes from getting tangled and what not in the tool box. Steal one from your sister. You can’t have mine. I think using a hair band is particularly clever because they won’t break down or lose elasticity like rubber bands do.

One is a crossover cable, following the pinout here. I also made loopback plug from the instructions on that page. I will be making his passive sniffer later. I’ll also upload and write some instructions when I get it made.

MY FEDORA STICKERS CAME!! Its awesome. These aren’t “el-cheapo” stickers, they are the real deal heavy duty foil styles. You can find the information on getting some stickers on the Fedora Wiki.

Also, I’m starting to have a “spam problem” on my blog. Hehe.

Rosewill RNX-EasyN1 Wireless

2011-02-22
backtrack linux
0 Comment

So, I like hacking because I like knowing what makes things tick. Hacking in the traditional sense provides this. And before you say anything, I’m one of the good guys. All I want to do is survey the network and make sure its as secure as I know how to make. Its also an awesome game of cops and robbers. And I love my netbook, partially because of its compact size but largely because it supports linux. Well, most of it. The one bug in this is the broadcom wireless adaptor that came with my netbook. It doesn’t support monitor mode or injection. Which is crucial to showing your neighbor why he should give you $20 to set up WPA2 on his network. So, I had to buy a “replacement”.

What I picked up is this, the Rosewill RNX-EasyN1, mostly because it was a tantalizing $10 shipped on newegg. And now I’m going to review it.

Appearance

I’ll be frank, its kinda of ugly. The thing is pretty chunky, and pretty ugly. The button is for WPS which means the adapter should communicate with the router and set everything up automatically. I’ve never used it.

Crappy pic is crappy

Give me a real camera and I'll retake the pics

What Matters, How Does it Work?

Windows

I tested the adapter briefly under Windows 7. It acquired the drivers with no issue, and Inssider was able to use it. Who cares about windows?

Linux!

Fedora

There’s some driver funkyness to be done to get it to work that I haven’t done. (Note, I did actually get this to work. You need the rt3070 drivers and it will mount as ra0). The broadcom adapter does fine so I don’t *need* this to work on fedora. What I wanted this device for was:

Backtrack 4 R2

And the important thing is, it works. For both injection and monitor mode. The adapter mounts as wlan0 and uses the ralink 2870/3070 driver (which is default).

Monitor Mode

Monitor mode was tested with two methods:

  1. airmon-ng start wlan0 which reports that there is now a mon0 created.
  2. iwconfig wlan0 mode Monitor. Running iwconfig again reports that the device is in monitor mode. It was confirmed by using Kismet and doing a little bit of war sitting.
Injection

Injection was tested with aireplay-ng -9 wlan0. It reports that injection is functioning.

I haven’t successfully cracked WEP yet, but I presume this is because I wasn’t generating any traffic on my network when I was trying to do the WEP crack.

In Closing

The device does what I wanted it for. That’s all I need.

ASUS Eee PC 1015PED-MU17-BK (Part 2)

2011-01-03
fedora linux
1 Comment

Part 2? Yup. I noticed that if you searched for Fedora and 1015PED-MU17 my blog post on the subject was the first thing to come up. I thought it was time to make a post that would provide proper information for those making that search on goodle..

First off, the information in my other blog post is sort of valid. But this post may also help. It covers the physical install of Fedora 14 But that was more about installing stuff then drivers, and getting up and running.

Oh, one note. I dropped the netbook and it still works. It was more of a controlled drop, because I slipped on the ice. The case got a little scratched up (even through the backpack), and the frame popped out in a few places. I was sweating while I popped everything back together and powered it up. I don’t advise you randomly drop your netbook, but its comforting to know that if you do, it has a chance of surviving.

Getting the Operating Systems Working

Brief Note About Windows

You’ll need to download the wireless and bluetooth drivers from the asus website. Keep the bluetooth drivers handy. You’ll need them when you attempt to pair a bluetooth device.

Fedora

That’s why you’re here, right? For dualtriple booting, see the previously linked posts. I ALWAYS advise dual-booting as opposed to having a dedicated linux device because there are situations where you cannot just have a linux only device. Since the 1015PED-MU17 ships with Windows 7, it isn’t that much harder to dual boot the computer and have that extra protection against possible “Windows-Only” environments.

What Works

I’m happy to that the function buttons work “out of the box” so to speak. Bluetooth drivers work out of the box as well, except that the KBluetooth module cannot properly pair bluetooth devices to the computer. This a a KBluetooth issue, and not a Fedora or eeePC issue. Work around here. The “multitouch” feature that asus uses for a scroll bar also works out of the box. The Intel GMA 3150 video card works correctly, with no issues that I am aware of.

What Doesn’t

The wireless. Actually, it does work. But Fedora doesn’t ship with the proper drivers by default. Instructions to fix this are here. You won’t be able to put the wireless card into monitor mode with the broadcom-wl drivers. You might possibly achieve it with the open source wireless drivers, but I haven’t had the guts to try it yet.

Meh

The projected battery life is also not as good when running linux as opposed to windows. I have not timed the actual battery life however. Windows 7 project 10 hours, with both the wireless and the bluetooth radios turned on. Fedora projects a bit over 5 hours. There may be a work around to improve the life, but I haven’t bothered to find out.

Other Thoughts

Good

The 1015PED-MU17 is a decent netbook. ASUS support is 24/7 like they say. The battery removal system is pretty slick, and I like the hardware camara “shut off”. I can carry it in one hand.

Bad

The power cable works okay. I wish the plug for connecting the charger to the computer was heavier duty, which is why I label it as “bad”.

Ugly

My device had to be shipped back for a replacement “keyboard” to fix my power switch. I’ve had it back for about a week know and will keep the blog posted if the switch fails again. Asus should have payed to ship the device after finding out about the faulty keyboard, but I have not been offered any repayment.

In closing

The 1015PED-MU17 is another Asus eeePC offering. It’s perfectly capable of serving as a linux device and a serviceable netbook regardless of what OS you choose to run.

Windows XP truly stands the test of time.

2010-11-26
Uncategorized
0 Comment

I was watching Firefly on DVD a little bit back. As I said in my title, Windows XP truly stands the test off time. Or maybe its just such a piece of trash that it really only deserves to be used on the giant flying dumpsters of the future. At any rate, enjoy the screen capture.